Tinkertown

Mix thoroughly bottles, mortar and cement and line sides of pan. Cover bottom of pan with boardwalk in random haphazard fashion. In separate bowl add miniature figures, electric motors and coat hangars. Whip until animated. Mix in miniature western town and 3 ring circus. Dribble this thin mixture alongside of boardwalk. Sprinkle pan randomly with arcade machines, old west paraphernalia, and collections. Place, where practical, ocean going yacht. Strategically position gift shop/gallery. In separate bowl add weathered wood and shingles, all glass, and metal roofing. Fold these ingredients carefully until stiff. Spread over entire pan. Bake under hot New Mexico Sun for over 30 years.

Do not let stand to cool.

Serves: All Generations.

This is a recipe I’ve found on “The Tinkertown Story” which I got from Carla Ward in Tinkertown.

Where is this town? We were anxious after driving few miles toward Sandia Crest in New Mexico and noticing no results. Finally we stopped by the huge sign telling that we got here. However it didn’t look like a town. Our guide didn’t say directly that “Tinkertown” operates as a museum. All we had known was that Dalai Lama loved it. It must be a big tourist attraction - we had thought. What we saw didn't match these expectations...

Among the juniper trees you see an old rusty ore bucket with bright pansies planted in it, a car painted with all colors of a rainbow, walls made of concrete and… bottles. And these wagon wheels hanging above you… Parts of bicycles, vehicles. Horseshoes here and there… Some of them described: “A bucket from Sand Pedro Mine – a ghost town”. Where are we??? Definitely the “museum” looked worth detouring couple miles. I have never seen something similar to Tinkertown. I have never had a tour to somebody’s soul as it occurred to be by the end of the day…

We walked into the gift shop to get entrance tickets. Normally. A lady with no-pretending interests in visitors welcomed us very warmly. It was Carla. She works here, she lives here. Tinkertown is her life. Like it was of her husband – Ross Ward. The father of this place, a place after which he was looking for about 40 years… Improving all the time till he was moved out in 2002. First, allow yourself some time to see the world he created. Feel it.

Carla gave us a quarter to launch a music band you notice as soon as your leave her room. The wood-carved musicians looking like characters from westerns welcome you in a corridor with partially stoned and wooden floor, with colorful bottles one next to another topped in concrete walls… They would look more “western” if it hadn’t been for a hippie-styled guitarist with a peace on bells jeans. Again some horseshoes. Some sculptures of male heads. Oh! This one has a cylinder! Imitations of cactuses. Another scene of Wild West from the past.

A lady is hand-washing, men with pipes are cutting firewood…

 

This is only the beginning.

The further you go, the more scenes of previous life style in the prairies and western settlements you can see. Conscientiously sculptured taverns, dance halls, saloons, streets full of varmints, Indians, covered wagons, horses, some signs of first Chinese and Mexican communities… Among them some odd figures of Snow White or Mickey Mouse surprise you. Ross had a sense of humor.

“We did all this while you were watching TV!” says a description at one of the bottles.

Ross was inspired when his parents took him to Knott’s Berry Farm in California in 1949. It was enough for a nine-year old boy to hook him on. When he returned to South Dakota he started drawing ghost towns, wanted posters, mining camp scenes. He played with modeling clay and popsicle sticks forming buffaloes, cowboys, rodeo grounds... All in the old back house, a 2’x’16’ space. “What we couldn’t find, we made”. He learned about the world of the 1850’s from old magazines in the local library. Some of the oldest little people he created back then still live in a miniature trading post of Tinkertown. They can enjoy a circus Ross started building in 1952. Painted clay people, toy animals, some carved figures…

“Unfortunately, high school gave no credit for my extracurricular self-education and I was always on the verge of falling my classes, while learning more and more of what I wanted”. From his further autobiography revealed that after completing official education he was trying to make a living and have a little fun while doing so. He learned it also from the people met on the road. Maybe that’s why he displayed a plaque with Mark Twain’s  

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness(…) Broad, wholesome, charitable views… can not be acquired by vegetating in one’s little corner of earth. 

 

  

 

Ross settled on “Tinkertown” in 1978, five years later the museum was opened to the public. Till that time he was collecting his exhibits from different parts of the world while working on building ghost town attractions, a miniature country stores… For a while he painted murals in bars and restaurants, mail boxes, spare tire covers… Finally Fun Houses. The last one for living. But he also found time to build a doll house for his children – Tanya and Jason.

His painstakingly work which you can admire today in Tinkertown includes also fortune tellers, wedding couple collections, ampuls from the drug stores’ dumps… And a boat…

 

 

“Theodora”

“Theodora” belonged to Fritz Damler. He quit his job and traded his house for the boat. He lived on Her for ten years, sailing 4 miles per hour. Time to time with some company. Why the boat is docked exactly here? Well, he was suggested to put it here by his sister - Carla Ward. A lady with no-pretending interests in visitors who welcomed us very warmly.

She is the one who helped Ross building the bottle construction and the miniature village. They also made together the pottery they sold in the gift shop. Carla is an artist/a potter who also enjoyed backpacked travelling in her youth. She met him working at the potter’s wheel in New Mexico. Few years later they “shared a beer and then a life”. She also added: “The thrill of being a partner to a true genius is a gift I treasure”. For her Tinkertown is a testament to hard work, determination and quite a few laughs along the way.

Carla was also an author of another original idea. The colored car which stands in front of the museum! Ross’ symptoms of Alzheimer made it unsafe for him to drive. That’s why she recommended that he starts a new project using the car. In two years the car became too successful as an art project to use it. 

Ross’ death from Alzheimer came suddenly on November 13, 2002 at the age of 62. Where has he been moved? I don’t remember any mention of the afterlife in Tinkertown. It seems that Ross was devoted to his “life as the pursuit of happiness” on earth. More precisely – in his great tiny world in Sandia Mountains, among juniper trees. Tinkertown is his life work. Like “Master and Margarita” was for Bulgakov, like special relativity was for Einstein. In this case almost 50 years of work… Here he found an ideal location for dreams of a nine-year old boy to finally come true. With the appreciated by him help from the friends, sometimes randomly met. With the beloved woman standing by him. 

With Carla. She showed me a Easter lamb given to her by some Polish lady.